The government'sCIO Councilis planning a"green"strategy for the public sector
which includes cutting tens of thousands of printers, taking power
consumption into consideration when buying PCs, and keeping
equipment for up to two years longer.
The strategy is designed to minimise the effects of the public
sector's £12.4bn annual IT spend on the environment and reduce the
carbon footprints of some four million public and civil
servants.
Government CIO John Suffolk told Computer Weekly, "We are
saying to people that any piece of new technology has a price that
is not just pound notes. It is a carbon price." He said the CIO
Council is asking staff to consider whether they can change how
they work.
Proposals were discussed at the CIO Council last month and will
be put to ministers this spring. Last September the then Cabinet
Office minister Gillian Merron called on the CIO Council to "reduce
the carbon footprint of government computers and improve the
sustainability of public sector IT".
Merron said the government is by far the biggest user of IT in
the UK. "We have a responsibility to set a positive example on the
environment, so I am asking our IT leaders to work with industry to
find new ways to improve the sustainability of government computer
systems," she said.
One of those leading the green initiative is the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Defra's CIO Chris Chant said
there has been a dramatic reduction in printers in large offices,
from one per eight employees to one for every 15 staff. This cuts
buying costs, electricity bills and the amount of equipment that
needs to be disposed of, he said.
Defra recently decided to fund centrally only one computing
device per employee - usually a thin-client desktop or a laptop. It
also discourages docking stations for laptops and thousands of
power-hungry CRT monitors have been replaced with flat screens.
Chant said the power-saving features in Windows Vista will be
used when the operating system is rolled out in March, and security
guards are instructed to switch off all PCs and equipment left on
at night. "You don't have to do anything complicated to make a
difference," he said.
At an IBM datacentre in London used by Defra virtualisation
software has enabled 12 servers to do the work previously done by
120 machines.
Defra also encourages staff to travel less to meetings and work
from home using technologies such as OneNote, Sharepoint, Live
Messenger and teleconferencing.
In 2007, 68% of all unwanted equipment, by weight, was reused,
28% of material was recycled, and only 4% was disposed of, said
Chant.